Ten-year anniversary of the Maintenance Act 99 of 1998 – A time to reflect on improvements, shortcomings and the way forward

Abstract

The Maintenance Act 23 of 1963 moved the burden of maintenance enforcement from the then Supreme Courts to maintenance courts The aim of the Act was to create a procedure by means of which an aggrieved party could obtain and/or enforce a maintenance order quickly and cheaply. Regrettably, the Act, and more specifically its enforcement mechanisms, proved to be ineffective. Complaints about the system ranged from the treatment, attitudes and facilities encountered at maintenance courts by complainants, to the seeming impunity with which maintenance debtors manage to evade their legal duty to maintain their dependents, even where maintenance orders were in force. In response to the problems encountered with the 1963 Maintenance Act and to fulfil South Africa’s international and constitutional obligations, the Maintenance Act 99 of 1998 was introduced. As the bulk of the Maintenance Act would have been in operation for exactly ten years on 26 November 2009, the government thought it appropriate to obtain a ten year review of the Act. I was subsequently instructed to compile a report, of which this article is an abbreviated version.